Sunday, March 16, 2014

I Didn't Know I Could Do This

Well this is a new one: I've e-over-socialled myself. I didn't know that was possible.

I have limited capacity for being around other people. Everyone does I guess but I think I hit a wall sooner than most. Classic introvert.

My high school reunion is coming up. I agreed to get in touch with seven of my classmates, only one of which I communicate with regularly, to make sure their contact info is up to date and to see if they're thinking about coming to the reunion.

Phone-phobic that I am, I've mostly been communicating by e-mail or Facebook message. Over-achieving communicator that I am, it takes me about an hour and a half (at least) to write a short e-mail. I want to be clear and expressive. I want to avoid misunderstandings (fail). I want to be present and authentic.

Of course it isn't as easy as writing seven e-mails. (Some people would just write one and send it to everyone on the list. What is my problem?) I couldn't find everyone so I had to contact other people who might know where my missing people are. I also contacted a few others because I was thinking about them and it seemed like a good idea to see how the were. The whole thing snowballed. Now I'm managing about eight e-correspondences of varying intensity.

It's not like it's a bad thing. I really like, respect and admire the folks I've been corresponding with. It's just too much socialness! My little amorphous brain can't handle it! All the reading! All the writing! All the thinking! All the interpreting and reading between the lines! All the not-going-down-the-rabbit-hole-of-thinking-about-adolescent-blunders-and-failures!

I just want to think about colors and textures and shapes for a while. Or nothing. I want to think about nothing. Or just a thin veil of light blue. Or a blurry image of white hydrangeas in a glass jar.

However, I have a deadline and two more people to reach one way or another and one more person to thank for forwarding contact info to me - another person I really like and hope to see again someday.

I bet I can put it all off for a couple more hours. Or maybe I'll just crank out two (hopefully) quick-ish e-mails and get the hard part done with and do the follow-up at a more leisurely pace.